On the day composer Adoniran Barbosa’s birth completes 115 years, the Galeria do Rock pays special tribute in partnership with singer Marcia Mah, who presents a pocket show and the screening of the short film Saudosa Floresta, celebrating 70 years of the song Saudosa Maloca.
The event is free and takes place this Wednesday (6), at Espaço Arena Galeria, starting at 6 p.m. There will also be a small exhibition of Adoniran Barbosa’s objects, part of the private collection of cultural producer Cassio Pardinio.
The animation tells the story of João Rubinato, Adoniran’s alter ego, and Sabiá Laranjeira, a bird symbol of the country and Brazilian biomes’ biodiversity, set against a backdrop of deforestation and housing shortage. The project was created by artist Marcia Mah, cartoonist Barão do Pirapora, filmmaker Juca Mencacci, musician Luiz Anthony, Maurício Nogueira, and actor Alexandre Franklin.
Born João Rubinato, son of Italian immigrants in the city of Valinhos in São Paulo state’s interior, he dropped out of elementary school to work. He was a weaver, shop clerk, house painter, and even waiter. After landing a job in São Paulo capital at age 22, he started entering radio amateur contests. In 1941, he joined Rádio Record as a comic actor and announcer. It was there he met the Demônios da Garoa group, with whom he enjoyed a long and fruitful partnership.
Deeming his name unsuitable for a samba singer, he adopted Adoniran, after a friend, with the surname honoring sambista Luiz Barbosa. From then on, he became one of Brazil’s foremost composers and a leading voice of the Italo-Paulistana community.
Adoniran gave us the three classics Trem das Onze, Samba do Arnesto, and Tiro ao Álvaro, songs reflecting his deep bond with downtown São Paulo, where the daily lives of workers, bars, and tenements inspired his music.
One of his signatures, deliberately mangling some words, was Adoniran’s way of connecting with ordinary folk. In Samba do Arnesto, this style shines in the lyrics: “o Arnesto nos convidou / Prum’ samba, ele mora no Brás / Nós fumos, não encontremos ninguém / Nós vortermos com uma baita de uma reiva / Da outra vez, nós não vai mais / Nós não semos tatu”.
Released on his debut album in 1974, the song was censored by the dictatorship on grounds that “the use of poor vernacular is not admissible in the media.” It only appeared on his second album, in 1975.
Sometimes, the composer’s poetry played on words, as with lovesick Álvaro—a pun on “target” (alvo) in Tiro ao Álvaro. The character is the bullseye for the frechadas [flechadas] launched by the girl’s gaze, deadlier than strychnine poison or revolver bullets.
Rooted in poetry that resonated with the working classes, Adoniran wove tales of everyday life that occasionally veered into social critique, like the eviction in Saudosa Maloca. “Peguemos todas nossas coisas e fumo pro meio da rua, apreciá a demolição/ Que tristeza que nós sentia/ Cada táuba que caía, doía no coração,” he wrote, voicing the homeless watching their tenement demolished.
Adoniran Barbosa died on November 23, 1982, at age 72. He was hospitalized at São Luiz treating pulmonary emphysema and buried at Cemitério da Paz in São Paulo.
Source: Agência Brasil